Multi-user dialog (“MUD”) role playing games have become quite popular within the last few years. Briefly, a multi-user dialog game uses a computer to create a virtual environment such as, for example, a medieval town, a castle, or any other natural or manmade landscape. Players participate in the game by assigning themselves characters sometimes called avatars. Generally, an avatar is a character within the game that the player defines and uses as his or her alter ego to interact with the game. For example, in a medieval town, one player might define his character to be a wizard, another player might create her character as a queen and still another player might decide to define herself in the game through a character in the form of a shop keeper. By interacting with the game through a display and a user input device, each player can control his or her own character to travel through the game's virtual environment and interact with that environment and with other characters.
Generally in such games, a central game server computer keeps track of each character's location in the environment and the characteristics of each character. This central server also provides tools (e.g., communications dialog capabilities and other interaction capabilities such as for example “fight”). The ability of having one's character interact with another player's character through the game medium can add a great deal of interest to the play of the game.
Commonly, such multi-user dialog role playing games are played in a computer network that allows for real time interaction among a number of players simultaneously. For example, perhaps the most common and widely used form of multi-user dialog game currently runs on a server connected to the Internet. Each participant connects to the MUD server via an Internet connection to his or her own personal computer or other computing device. The MUD server allows a number of different players to connect simultaneously—allowing simultaneous real time interaction between players through their respective characters. Players may thus communicate, cooperate and befriend one another in real time through their respective characters.
Such multi-user dialog role playing games have achieved a high degree of sophistication and popularity in the networked computer world, but have not been successfully implemented before in a non-networked computing platform context such as home video game systems. While the idea of a network of home video game systems is known and some home video game companies have attempted networking, most home video game systems in use today are not networked or otherwise connected to any other computer or other video game system. Often, people place their home video game systems in a living room or den where there is no dial-up telephone line that could be used to connect the home video game system to a network. Additionally, accessories that might have been available in the past for establishing a home video game system network connection tended to be expensive, and often required a level of technical proficiency beyond at least younger game players. Furthermore, the business models associated with previous attempts to network video game systems tended to be based on monthly subscription fees that many people were unwilling to pay. For these and other reasons, the realization of a large scale network of home video game systems has not yet materialized.
As hardware accessories become less expensive, data bandwidth into the home becomes more available, and compelling video game content requiring a networked connection provides enough added value to justify the cost, there will certainly come a time when home video game systems will be networked in the same way that most home personal computers now have some access to the Internet or other computer networking services (e.g., America Online, CompuServe, etc.). However, despite major pushes by certain video game platform companies (e.g., Sega) encouraging home video game networking, it appears that nearly universal home video game platform networks may still be a few years away.
Before as well as after the widespread acceptance of home video game networking, it would be highly desirable to provide multi-user dialog video games playable on home video game platform environments. The present invention provides a solution by, among other things, providing a multi-user role playing game that can be run on a community of discrete stand-alone home video game platforms capable of intermittently exchanging small amounts of data—and which takes advantage of the discrete, self-sufficient functionality of home video game platforms to provide a fun, interesting and exciting game play.
In accordance with one aspect provided by this invention, virtual game playing environments are defined on each of a collection or community of home video game systems. For example, in one preferred embodiment, random data available at each of the home video game systems is used to uniquely define respective virtual game playing environments. Thus, a person can have an enjoyable game playing experience using his or her own home video game system by, for example, providing user input through a user input device and watching a display on a home color television set.
In accordance with an aspect of a preferred embodiment of this invention, characters defined within one virtual game environment can “visit” or move permanently to another virtual game environment. For example, a particular game play character defined within the virtual game environment at my house may decide to leave my virtual game environment and move to the virtual game environment defined at your house. Similarly, a game playing character within your virtual game playing environment may be able to come visit my virtual game environment and then return home to your virtual game environment.
In the exemplary embodiment, the sharing or transferring of characters, objects or other aspects of unique virtual game environments defined on a corresponding collection of home video game platforms is accomplished through intermittent exchange of data between the respective home video game platforms. Such intermittent data exchange can be provided, for example, by removing a portable memory device containing the data to be exchanged from one home video game platform, physically transporting the portable memory device to another home video game platform, and connecting that portable memory device so that it can be read by the other home video game platform.
For example, suppose a player wishes to have his character visit the virtual game environment defined at the home video game platform of a friend. In such instance in the exemplary and illustrative embodiment, the player may command his or her home video game platform to store data defining his or her corresponding character on a portable memory device connected to is or her home video game platform. The player's character thus “leaves” his “home” virtual gaming environment to go abroad and visit another virtual gaming environment. The player may then remove the portable memory device from his or her home video game platform and physically carry it to a friend's house. Upon arriving at the friend's house, the player may insert the portable memory device into the friend's home video game platform and thereby enter the virtual game environment defined there. The player may interact with the friend's virtual game environment, meeting characters there, collecting objects and gathering experiences.
When game play at the friend's house is concluded, the player may save his character's data back to the portable memory device. The new objects, experiences and other information acquired in the friend's virtual game environment may be similarly stored on the portable memory device. When the player returns home, he may insert the portable memory device back into his or her own video game platform, and his or her character may thereby “return home” to the player's own virtual game environment—while still maintaining the benefit of the objects and experiences when abroad.
Thus, one aspect of the preferred embodiment of the present invention is to provide an ability for player-defined role playing characters to travel between unique or different instances of an overall role playing video game environment at respective home video game or other game playing devices.
In more detail, in accordance with one aspect provided by an example embodiment of this invention, a player interacts with his or her own video game platform to define a player character (e.g., an animal in the forest, a medieval knight, or any other type of character appropriate to the particular type of game environment). The home video game platform stores information defining this player character within a writable storage device that is local to the home video game platform. For example, this information may be stored within a “flash,” magnetic or other memory.
After playing the game and storing character-related data on the memory, the player may remove the memory from his or her own video game system and take it to the house of a friend who has a similar home video game system. The removable, portable memory may now be connected to the friend's home video game system—thus introducing the first player's character into the virtual environment defined on the friend's home video game system. In this way, player characters can move between different, discrete instantiations of a common virtual environment defined by the multi-user dialog game.
The different instantiations of the virtual game playing environment are, in accordance with another aspect provided by this invention, not identical. For example, the virtual environment defined by the overall multi-user dialog game may be a large place (e.g., a forest, a galaxy, a mythical or actual country, etc.) having a number of smaller subdivisions (e.g., villages or other communities, inhabitable planets, castles, etc.) within it. Each instance of the game may define a different subdivision. As one example, the instantiation of the game at a first player's home video game platform may define a first village within a forest, and the instantiation of the game at another home video game platform may define a different village within the forest. A player may visit another village by going over to a friend's house—thereby transporting his or own character to visit the virtual village defined in the friend's home video game platform—and thereafter return home to his own “home” village.
In accordance with yet another aspect provided by an example embodiment of this invention, information other than that representing player characters can be shared between different instantiations of the game. For example, characters associated with players may interact with other characters that are controlled by the game itself. Different instantiations of the game can define different “non-player” characters. These non-player characters can be shared between game instantiations. Thus, for example, when a player transports a portable data storage device to another player's house, he or she may be introducing interesting non-player characters into the friend's instantiation of the game—providing new characters for the friend's character to interact with. Non-player characters may thus travel from one instantiation of the game to another—increasing the interest level among all of the game players.
The data transport mechanism may also be used to communicate objects between different game instantiations. For example, in accordance with another aspect provided by a preferred embodiment of this invention, mail or other messages can be sent between different instantiations of the game. This allows players using one instantiation of the game to communicate with players using another instantiation of the game. Objects other than mail (e.g., goods to purchase, magic charms, regional food items, etc.) may also be communicated between game instantiations to maintain a high level of interest, variety and fun.
Other illustrative and exemplary features and advantages provided in accordance with further aspects of preferred illustrative embodiments of this invention include:                Each game instantiation or installation defines a unique virtual environment, and residents randomly or otherwise set up the unique environment as a personalized unique world.        The passage of time in the game and the passage of time in real life may be synchronized. Thus, as time passes in real life, the game environment may respond by changing the seasons, causing plants and trees to grow, etc.        A record of a village or other virtual environment instantiation may be shared and played by more than one player.        A letter may be written to other players. Upon request at a post office, the letter can be delivered to other players' mailbox at a predetermined delivery time. This modeling of a postal system provides communication between players who are not playing the game simultaneously.        Each instantiation of the virtual environment may provide a bulletin board or other centralized place for posting messages that other players may read. This mechanism can provide inter-player communication for players who are not simultaneously playing the game.        A player “registered” in one game instantiation or installation can visit another game instantiation or installation.        Non-player characters can remember multiple (former) players who are not currently playing. Thus, a non-player character may talk about players who are not currently playing—providing an interesting historical aspect and allowing one player to learn about another player through non-player characters.        A non-player character defined in one virtual game environment instantiation can move to another virtual game environment instantiation. The historical recollection of a non-player character can move with the characters, so the non-player character can “remember” the players and other aspects of the original game environment after the non-player character has moved to a new environment. For example, a non-player character who has moved from one village to another can relate, to the player characters in the new village, the players the non-player character interacted with while in the former village as well as other aspects of the former village.        A game player can be asked to deliver things from one non-player character to another. This delivery is possible even after the non-player character has moved to another instantiation of the game. Thus, for example, a player may be given a quest to deliver a particular object to a non-player character in another instantiation of the game. This requires the player to visit a friend's house. In this way, it is possible to request and achieve quests for other objectives involving multiple installations of the game.        A player can compose music for his or her own instantiation of the game. For example, the player can compose a village melody used to report the time or to make other special effect sound.        Player characters in the game can communicate using dialects or other particular manners of speaking. Thus, player and non-player characters may communicate using individual, unique speech characteristics. It is possible for a particular manner of speaking to grow into popularity among other players. For example, a particular dialect or set of expressions may become popular in one instantiation of the virtual game environment as a particular player interacts with that environment. Such particular ways of speaking may become popular in other instantiations as game data moves from one instantiation to another. This feature is not limited to manners of speaking, but can be extended to other aspects of behavior such as particular practices, types of work or play, favorite foods, etc. This feature can be used to provide additional variety as well as to simulate how fads and other behavior may be shared and become popular in different regions of a virtual world.        The invention is not limited to data exchanges using portable, removable physical storage media. For example, it is possible for a player to use electronic mail or any other communications mechanisms (including the Internet) to “network” or otherwise transfer data from one instantiation of the game to another.        A player or non-player character may be defined using a texture or other graphical content designed by the player. For example, the player may define a particular graphic to be used to pattern the clothing, umbrella, or other articles of his or her avatar. This technique can also be used by a player to customize his or own instantiation of virtual game environment (e.g., to hang a favorite picture on the wall). Different graphical contents can be traded between players.        A portable game platform can be used to further increase functionality and to transport game data from one game instantiation to another. For example, a player may connect his or her own video game platform to a portable game device and download data into the portable game device. The portable game device may or may not provide a limited degree of game playing capability using this data. The player may transport the portable game device to another player's house and connect it to his or her home video game platform—therefore sharing and exchanging data between the two home video game platforms via the portable game playing device.        